Hello my name is Kerry and I am a senior at URI where I am studying Secondary Education, Biology, and General Science. I grew up in Cranston, Rhode Island and have been living in the Kingston / Narragansett area while going to school the past 4 years. At URI I got involved in many campus activities such as greek life, where I am a sister of Phi Sigma Sigma. My freshman year I participated in Jumpstart and my sophomore year I was a URI 101 Mentor. Since junior year I have had a job on the bay campus as an office assistant in the RI NSF EPSCoR office. EPSCoR is funded by the national science foundation and we work to promote science collaboration and outreach in Rhode Island. I have three sibilings and a neice and nephew. My neice is currently a freshman at North Kingstown High School where I will be student teaching. After finishing student teaching and graduating from URI I plan to get a job in Rhode Island, hopefully in a low income school, and work for a few years before returning to school to get my masters.
Teaching Portfolio
teaching rationale/philosophy. Unit Plan
The purpose of this unit plan is to build on student’s prior knowledge and expand their knowledge of evolution. Students will have been previously studying the history of life and will have covered geologic time as well as genetics in earlier chapters. Therefore, I will build on this as I introduce and teach the chapter entitled The Theory of Evolution. Evolution can be a controversial topic so a major focus of this unit is the evidence that evolution exists.
I will begin this unit with a lesson on natural selection and Charles Darwin where the students, among other things, will conduct a Birds and Beaks lab to illustrate how the Galapagos Finches beaks changed over time. Next we will get into the evidence for evolution. Here I am having the students do a jigsaw activity in which each group will read an article on a different type of evidence for evolution such as fossils, structural adaptations, and anatomy. I will have the groups share out after during which students can discuss what they learned and give their own opinions on what this evidence suggests for evolution. The next topic I will cover is population genetics and I designed an activity where the students will be using Teddy Grahams (which come in two different positions) to show how populations change over time due to natural selection. The final topic I will address is the evolution of species which is a lesson on cladograms. Here I will bring in different sets of organisms (toys such as plastic dinosaurs) and have the students assemble a cladogram where they will have to be able to articulate and rationalize why they built the cladogram as they did. Finally I will do a wrap up review game of Jeopardy before the 6th day of the unit which will be a test
Student Teaching Information
A. First Student Teaching Placement
School: North Kingstown High School (2008 NKHS context report ) Address: 150 Fairway Drive North Kingstown, RI 02852 (directions from URI) Principal: Thomas W. Kenworthy, Ed.D. Sci Dept Head/MS Team Leader: Mr. Viner Who do you call when sick or dying? The main office and my CT What are the phone numbers? 401-268-6236 (main office), I also have my CT's cell number Cooperating Teacher: Mr. Bruno
Observations and Reflections
Link each of your school observations to its entry in the table and delete this prompt:
Kerry Keenan
Hello my name is Kerry and I am a senior at URI where I am studying Secondary Education, Biology, and General Science. I grew up in Cranston, Rhode Island and have been living in the Kingston / Narragansett area while going to school the past 4 years. At URI I got involved in many campus activities such as greek life, where I am a sister of Phi Sigma Sigma. My freshman year I participated in Jumpstart and my sophomore year I was a URI 101 Mentor. Since junior year I have had a job on the bay campus as an office assistant in the RI NSF EPSCoR office. EPSCoR is funded by the national science foundation and we work to promote science collaboration and outreach in Rhode Island. I have three sibilings and a neice and nephew. My neice is currently a freshman at North Kingstown High School where I will be student teaching. After finishing student teaching and graduating from URI I plan to get a job in Rhode Island, hopefully in a low income school, and work for a few years before returning to school to get my masters.
Teaching Portfolio
teaching rationale/philosophy.Unit Plan
The purpose of this unit plan is to build on student’s prior knowledge and expand their knowledge of evolution. Students will have been previously studying the history of life and will have covered geologic time as well as genetics in earlier chapters. Therefore, I will build on this as I introduce and teach the chapter entitled The Theory of Evolution. Evolution can be a controversial topic so a major focus of this unit is the evidence that evolution exists.
I will begin this unit with a lesson on natural selection and Charles Darwin where the students, among other things, will conduct a Birds and Beaks lab to illustrate how the Galapagos Finches beaks changed over time. Next we will get into the evidence for evolution. Here I am having the students do a jigsaw activity in which each group will read an article on a different type of evidence for evolution such as fossils, structural adaptations, and anatomy. I will have the groups share out after during which students can discuss what they learned and give their own opinions on what this evidence suggests for evolution. The next topic I will cover is population genetics and I designed an activity where the students will be using Teddy Grahams (which come in two different positions) to show how populations change over time due to natural selection. The final topic I will address is the evolution of species which is a lesson on cladograms. Here I will bring in different sets of organisms (toys such as plastic dinosaurs) and have the students assemble a cladogram where they will have to be able to articulate and rationalize why they built the cladogram as they did. Finally I will do a wrap up review game of Jeopardy before the 6th day of the unit which will be a test
Student Teaching Information
A. First Student Teaching Placement
School: North Kingstown High School (2008 NKHS context report )Address: 150 Fairway Drive North Kingstown, RI 02852 (directions from URI)
Principal: Thomas W. Kenworthy, Ed.D.
Sci Dept Head/MS Team Leader: Mr. Viner
Who do you call when sick or dying? The main office and my CT
What are the phone numbers? 401-268-6236 (main office), I also have my CT's cell number
Cooperating Teacher: Mr. Bruno
Observations and Reflections
Link each of your school observations to its entry in the table and delete this prompt: